In the Fallen Heart
by Midnayuki
Summary: Companion piece to Into the Darkness Again, but can stand alone. Sora has fallen into Antiform again. Roxas and Ventus do their best to keep his light safe.


**A/N Hello all. This idea struck me over the head with all the force of the Holy Hand Grenade and wouldn't let me sleep. I've never seen anyone do any "Meanwhile, in Sora's heart" kind of situation when he's in Antiform, so I figured I'd give it a shot.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

There was darkness again. It was always lurking in the back of Sora's heart, but it managed to bring itself to the front again, no matter how much the two sleeping within him tried to keep it at bay.

Roxas took up the duty of guarding Sora from everything he could, as he always did. When Sora was like this, Roxas could barely feel the connection between them. He was separate from Sora's power, but could use his own again. Roxas remembered with a shudder how it first felt to be torn from Sora. Now that they were whole, he could remember the agony of the Keyblade of Captive Hearts piercing him, and the anguished emptiness of floating away.

He remembered the confusion of waking up to a twilit sky, and the mindless wandering he did before the Organization. Even with the Organization, to an extent, he was mindless and searching. At least he had Axel and Xion to help fill the void within him, even though they had fallen apart toward the end.

Roxas watched as the Station of Serenity was slowly consumed by blackness, with Sora lying in the middle of it, gasping in fear and pain. The image on the platform was changing too. The brown in Sora's hair - both the image on the platform and the boy trying desperately to cling to the light that was slipping away from him - was turning black as pitch. Their eyes were turning a bright, poisonous yellow. Sora cringed at every change taking place, even the platform's transformation from blue and white to red and black.

Roxas watched in sadness as his other half stared at what passed for the sky in the world inside their heart, with nothing but pain etched on his face and a blank look in his eyes. He knew that, as a Nobody, he could do little to truly keep the darkness at bay.

Deeper within Sora's heart, another heart stirred as it usually did when Sora fell to the darkness. Ventus woke from his long sleep, feeling the pain of his host as acutely as the day he felt it himself, when Vanitas was torn from him.

Sora had saved him that day, when Master Xehanort had taken him to the Destiny Islands. He had been healed by the strength and light of Sora's heart, and then been taken to the Land of Departure, where he met the only people in his life he could call his family.

Ever since that day, there was hardly ever a waking moment Ven spent away from Terra, Aqua, and Master Eraqus. He had an adopted older brother, sister, and even someone he could call a father in his heart. Even in his long sleep, he dreamt of them, and Terra's heart and his touched each other more than once. But like this, Sora didn't even have Roxas to touch his heart and fight his own darkness.

So, Ventus made the effort to wake up and reach out to Sora as best as he could, fighting the darkness with the light and warmth Sora gave him.

Roxas could not see the outside anymore, so he did not know how Sora's friends were reacting. He probably wouldn't have bothered to check, either, even if he could, because all of his energy was being diverted to the Station of Serenity.

Sora was screaming now, thrashing about in the middle of the platform, trying in vain to battle the darkness that lurked around him. Roxas pulled out his keyblades as he had before, and did his best to bat the shadows away. He could keep many of them from getting close to his other, but some still made it through. With every shadow that struck him, Sora's screams became a little louder, and his eyes became a little more blank.

But Roxas pressed on, getting as close to Sora as he could, doing all he could to keep their heart safe.

While Roxas was trying to reach Sora from the outside, battling the darkness that assaulted everything he was and everything he stood for, Ventus approached him from the inside. Little more than a heart, all he could do was hover around Sora and keep as much darkness at bay as he could.

While he did this, Ven made contact with Sora like before, and pulled Sora's consciousness inside his own heart. There was no platform here, just a lush garden and some ponds under a vast, starry sky.

"Where am I?" Sora was groggy and tired, but Ven supposed he should be grateful for the awareness he'd managed to keep. The last time Ven had to do this to safeguard Sora's light, Sora spent the whole time sleeping.

"You're in my heart." Sora blinked and tried to find the source of the noise. Roxas was walking toward him except he wasn't wearing his Organization XIII coat which was weird because Sora had never seen him without it. Sora shrugged it off and asked, "Where are we Roxas?"

'Roxas' chuckled. "I'm not Roxas. I've been in your heart for a long time Sora, ever since some things happened and mine was shattered. My name is Ventus, but everyone calls me Ven." The newly dubbed Ven sat by Sora and waited in the calm for the one who had been shielding him all this time to speak.

"It's nice to meet you, Ven, I think." A pause. "What happened to make your heart shatter so bad you needed to live inside my heart?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"You won't remember anything when you wake up."

"But the memory will still be here, deep inside my heart." _So he does remember Namin__é__, if only subconsciously, _Ven mused.

Ven sighed and looked down for a moment. "Okay, I guess I could tell you the story... I'd recommend getting comfy, we're going to be here a while." Sora, having become more alert during the exchange, shifted in his seat and looked at Ven eagerly. Ven chuckled. "It all started when my friends, Terra and Aqua, were taking their test to become Keyblade Masters..."

And so Ven spoke. He told Sora his story, all of it. Ven left nothing out, though the telling was slow and halting. He felt like Sora deserved to know how badly Ven had changed his fate simply by residing within Sora all this time. He wanted Sora to know how sorry he was that his fate had been changed.

But Sora forgave him. Seeing the look of disbelief on Ven's face, Sora explained "Well, I've made a lot of really good friends on my journey, and I never would have met them if I didn't have a keyblade. So, I guess, I should be thanking you for choosing me." Ven was stunned for a second, then he remembered just what kind of person Sora was. Sora could never truly hate anything, or hold a grudge. When he fought, it was because of the consequences of standing idly by. He didn't hate Naminé for messing with his memories, he didn't hate Xemnas for not having a heart. The closest he ever came to hating anything was Xehanort's heartless for possessing Riku and turning him away from the light, and Saïx for kidnapping Kairi.

As he was reflecting on this, Sora slowly began to fade back to his own heart, signifying that he was returning to normal. As he became more and more transparent, he began to get more and more sleepy. The beautiful scenery in Ven's heart faded, and soon the two of them were back on Sora's platform. Sora fell asleep in the middle as Roxas came over to him, dripping with sweat and tiredness from all the fighting he had done to keep the shadows at bay.

He looked down at his other with a serene look on his face that was mirrored in the translucent figure of Ven. They sat down beside him, caring for him from the inside of his heart.

When Sora woke up, he would find himself on the outside again. He would not remember the pain of the darkness, or Roxas keeping it at bay, or Ven telling him his story. Roxas would see his old room through Sora's eyes, and remember Xion's and Axel's sacrifices with a pang that would echo through Sora. Ventus would know that he was able to give back to the one that had given so much to him, and he would fall back into his long sleep, waiting for the day he could wake up for good. Roxas and Ven would communicate silently to each other, and vow to repeat what they had just done as many times as they needed to keep their light safe. Roxas and Ventus would feel a rush of warmth and light echo through them as Sora summoned his keyblade, and they would remember the same elation that came with fighting for and protecting what mattered, and it would give them light and strength again. Roxas would speak to Naminé again, and Sora and Kairi would promise to be together everyday, and Ven would make the same vow to himself, Terra, and Aqua as they all awaited their birth by sleep.

But for now, Sora slept on, not knowing that he was special, not knowing that he was full of light and goodness, not knowing he would be watched over within his heart as he slept, not knowing the trials that still lay ahead of him or even the ones he'd conquered... He couldn't know that at that very moment, all the people in all of the worlds that meant the most to him were watching over him, waiting for Sora to come back and bring them light again.


End file.
